Father's day musings

I hope all you fathers out there had a fantastic father's day yesterday, and were spoilt by your loved ones. And if you are not a father, I hope you were able to convey to your own father how special he is, or if departed, how special he was.

I appreciate also that not all of us have had the greatest relationships with our fathers. If that is the case, my sympathy to you. I was fortunate enough to have (and still do) a very good relationship with my own father. For me, the sad thing is I live more than 10,000 miles away from him now, on the other side of the world. I won't go into the feelings of guilt that this invokes.

While I am thinking of father's day, I feel I ought to express how wonderful it feels to me to be a father to my own two beautiful girls. I don't want to go all soppy, but truly, it is a very privileged position I find myself in. I was walking around today, thinking about this, and realised that there was never a truer saying than 'money cannot buy you love'. My own daughters are living proof of this. I would exchange (if I had it) all the money, status and material possessions I own to see their unbridled joy as they run to hug me, and say "I love you daddy!"

My perfume on father's day was Serge Lutens' Cedre. Cedar, tuberose, musk, amber and cinnamon. A manly fragrance with a feminine touch. Dare I say it.

Serge Lutens Cedre

I was given a bottle of Cedre for my birthday back in July, courtesy of my good wife. Although I didn't quite realise it at the time, she made the choice based on what appealed to her, after trawling through literally the whole export range at Fenwicks!

We recently went away to the Isle of Wight for a week's holiday. I'm not going to describe our holiday in any detail, nice as it was, suffice to say that for an island only three miles south of a bigger island (United Kingdom) it felt like three hundred and thirty three miles away. If you ever go to the Isle of Wight, you can look across the Solent from Ryde, Fishbourne or Cowes and see merry Portsmouth, with its spinnaker tower gleaming in the sunlight. Of course, this being late October, sunlight was in short supply!

Anyway, the only perfume I took to the Isle of Wight was Cedre, and I wore it solidly for a week. This is unusual for me. I think the last time I wore one bottle of perfume exclusively for three days, let alone a week must have been about five years ago. I thought I would get withdrawal symptoms, but I actually enjoyed wearing Cedre exclusively. Each day brought out a new facet, and as a perfumista, this is something I seldom experience these days. Cedre also become quite comforting to me, knowing each day as I sprayed it on that it would stay with me on my travels, constant and warm.

Ever better was that my wife wore Cedre the whole week too. She has taken to it in a big way, which is very unusual, as she is not a massive perfume fan. I'm perfectly happy to share it with her.

I'm not sure of the exact note list for Cedre, but other than a very well-executed cedar note, it also includes musk, amber, cinnamon and tuberose. I would have thought that tuberose and cedar would make an unusual pairing and in a way it is, but it works wonderfully. The tuberose is not overwhelming, but perfectly blended with dryer woody notes to work in beautiful harmony. I read somewhere that Cedre is a continuation of the Bois series, at least in feel, and I must say that I can see the link from Feminite Du Bois quite clearly. However I find Cedre to be much warmer and comforting.

Image credit: http://www.punmiris.com/